Founded in 1997, this is the home of interchange between performers and scholars interested in art song by African-American composers. Here you will find information and links to assist with your discovery of our contribution to song.

The African American Composer Initiative (AACI) presents the works of living and historical African American composers in concert, shares video of these live concerts online, and commissions new compositions.

A digital sheet music collection at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island

This critical research guide highlights the African American voices in Yale’s Oral History of American Music (OHAM) collection, as well as those whose work has been influenced by and/or indelibly shaped African American music from the early twentieth century through today.

A database of original works by composers in the African Diaspora. All research associated with this project is owned and presented by Dr. Louise Toppin and Videmus.

The Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois holds collections highlighting the role of black music in world culture with materials originating or representing black music in the United States, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean in a variety of formats: personal papers, scores, sheet music, audio-visual materials, photographs, books, periodicals, and commercial recordings.

At the AAAMC, you will find materials covering a range of African American musical idioms and cultural expressions primarily from the post-World War II era. Our collections highlight popular, religious, and classical music, with genres ranging from blues and gospel to R&B and contemporary hip hop. The AAAMC also houses extensive materials related to the documentation of black radio.

The ICD is dedicated to the celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by composers from historically underrepresented groups through online tools, research-based resources, and sponsored initiatives.

An ongoing database to find living black composers created by Music for Black Composers (MBC), a project of the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation

The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences.

The Spirituals Database offers searchable access to recorded track information for concert Negro Spiritual settings performed by solo Classical vocalists. The resource contains a selection from a century of historic and contemporary concert spiritual recordings produced on compact discs, long-playing (33 1/3 rpm) albums, 78 rpm records, 45 rpm discs, audio cassettes and streamed audio files, as well as demonstration recordings from musical score collections.